TypeError: startswith first arg must be bytes or a tuple of bytes, not str

python 3, winrm version 0.2

code

command = 'mkdir C:/a/b/c'
s = winrm.Session(hostname, auth=(username, password))
r = s.run_ps(command)

If command is ‘ls C:/a/b’ ,then success.

Traceback

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.4/site-packages/tornado/web.py", line 1443, in _execute
    result = method(*self.path_args, **self.path_kwargs)
  File "/g/ops_card-master/handler/business/script.py", line 40, in post
    result = self.exec_script(pk)
  File "/g/ops_card-master/handler/decorator.py", line 4, in wrapper
    result = func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/g/ops_card-master/handler/business/script.py", line 136, in exec_script
    result = self.pool.starmap(self.exe, li)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.4/multiprocessing/pool.py", line 268, in starmap
    return self._map_async(func, iterable, starmapstar, chunksize).get()
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.4/multiprocessing/pool.py", line 599, in get
    raise self._value
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.4/multiprocessing/pool.py", line 119, in worker
    result = (True, func(*args, **kwds))
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.4/multiprocessing/pool.py", line 47, in starmapstar
    return list(itertools.starmap(args[0], args[1]))
  File "/g/ops_card-master/handler/decorator.py", line 18, in wrapper
    result = func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/g/ops_card-master/handler/business/script.py", line 172, in exe
    r = s.run_ps(command)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/site-packages/pywinrm-0.2.0-py3.4.egg/winrm/__init__.py", line 54, in run_ps
    rs.std_err = self._clean_error_msg(rs.std_err)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/site-packages/pywinrm-0.2.0-py3.4.egg/winrm/__init__.py", line 62, in _clean_error_msg
    if msg.startswith("#< CLIXML\r\n"):
TypeError: startswith first arg must be bytes or a tuple of bytes, not str

[bikerider262]

I hit the same issue, but my tweak was a little different:

I am on python3.4 and version 0.2.0

import winrm

s = winrm.Session('hostname', auth=('administrator', 'password'))

command = """(Get-NetIPAddress).IPAddress | % { if ($_ -match "^10.") {write-host $_} }"""

r = s.run_ps(command)

print(r.std_out.decode('utf-8'))

Output:

… …py_projects/winrm_ps_basic.py", line 7, in <module> r = s.run_ps(command) File “/usr/local/lib/python3.4/site-packages/winrm/init.py”, line 55, in run_ps rs.std_err = self._clean_error_msg(rs.std_err) File “/usr/local/lib/python3.4/site-packages/winrm/init.py”, line 63, in _clean_error_msg if msg.startswith(“#< CLIXML\r\n”): TypeError: startswith first arg must be bytes or a tuple of bytes, not str

Changing code as suggested above gave me this message:

Warning: there was a problem converting the Powershell error message: can’t use a string pattern on a bytes-like object 192.168.33.32

Process finished with exit code 0

So… warning looked suspicious…

I removed the b

I changed the message before it went into def _clean_error_msg(self, msg):

I changed rs.std_err in def run_ps(self, script):

from: rs.std_err = self._clean_error_msg(rs.std_err) to: rs.std_err = self._clean_error_msg(rs.std_err.decode(‘utf-8’))

I now have a clean output.

Hope this helps.

[JPvRiel]

If anyone is looking for a quick monkey patch based on @bikerider262’s solution, this worked for me

def fix_run_ps(self, script):
    from base64 import b64encode
    encoded_ps = b64encode(script.encode('utf_16_le')).decode('ascii')
    rs = self.run_cmd('powershell -encodedcommand {0}'.format(encoded_ps))
    if len(rs.std_err):
        rs.std_err = self._clean_error_msg(rs.std_err.decode('utf-8'))
    return rs

winrm.Session.run_ps = fix_run_ps